


the key to finding love is fucking up the pattern on purpose

by misandrywitch



Series: Folk Band AU [2]
Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Rock Band, Bisexual Mandy, Bisexuality, Coming Out, F/F, Folk Music, Folk band AU, Past Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-29
Updated: 2015-03-29
Packaged: 2018-03-19 19:56:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3622284
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misandrywitch/pseuds/misandrywitch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>i've been meaning to write about folk band au mandy & ian as well as folk band au mandy & svetlana for ages and ages so here it is. not standalone, you probably want to read folk band au first. </p><p>contains some talk of child abuse, rape & general abuse-- nothing explicit</p><p>shittybknights.tumblr.com</p>
    </blockquote>





	the key to finding love is fucking up the pattern on purpose

**Author's Note:**

> i've been meaning to write about folk band au mandy & ian as well as folk band au mandy & svetlana for ages and ages so here it is. not standalone, you probably want to read folk band au first. 
> 
> contains some talk of child abuse, rape & general abuse-- nothing explicit
> 
> shittybknights.tumblr.com

When Mandy Milkovich is 10 years old, she joins a band. It has two members, herself and Mickey, and no name. For two weeks only one of the members knows they’re a part of it. Mandy decides this when she walks into the empty house to see her brother sitting by himself on his bed with a guitar in his hands. The notes are clumsy and inexpert and slow. That doesn’t matter to Mandy though. She thinks he looks cool, like a rock star.

When Mandy tells Mickey about the existence of her band he glowers at her and tells her to shove off. That’s okay, she thinks. Sometimes band members fight.

Mandy chronicles things, files them away in her head. Things that are important, good moments. Good stories. She tries writing songs every now and then but she isn’t that great at it. Mickey probably is; she’s not really sure why she’d think this except he’s always been good at telling her stories when she was little, and he’s got a good voice.

But still, it’s important to remember the things that are important, to filter through her days and pick out the bits that are funny, the parts that are tragic but in the right ways. Someone’s going to ask her about her life someday when she’s famous and being interviewed. She pictures herself on the cover of a magazine. Her name in lights. She needs to remember (and nobody will mind if she fabricates a little). She has to have a good story to tell, better than the one she has.

 

* * *

 

When Mandy is 13 years old, she begins to realize that boys like her. Boys tease her in the hallway, they buy her things at lunch and shoplift her candy bars and magazines from the Kash n Grab. Boys think she’s pretty. Boys want to kiss her. 

To Mandy, 13 and skinny-legged and the smallest in her family, it feels like a superpower. She resolves to get better at it. Flirting with boys and kissing boys and other things too, as she gets older. She gets very good at it.

Mandy likes that. She likes that she knows how to kiss a boy good but also bash his face in with a crowbar.

 

 

 

Ironically enough, Mandy is also 13 when she kisses a girl for the first time. She tells herself it doesn’t mean anything. 

It doesn’t mean anything because Mandy’s a little drunk, and her friend Alyssa is also a little drunk, and they’re playing truth or dare on the floor of Alyssa’s bedroom, five teenage girls and a bottle of something alcoholic and flavored like strawberry. Mandy had talked her brothers into grabbing it for her. They all feel very grown-up and giggly and when Alyssa picks dare, Jen’s eyes light up.

“Kiss someone!” she says. Alyssa sticks out her tongue. “Kiss--- kiss Mandy. You’re always bragging about how good you are at it, so prove it.” Warmth blooms up the side of her face in a hot flush that she’s sure is a side effect of the alcohol.

“You’re so stupid,” Alyssa rolls her eyes.

“What?” Mandy says. “You scared? You chicken?” She puckers up her lips in a ridiculous kiss-face and winks. Alyssa laughs and leans forward, bending from the waist and catching Mandy’s chin with her sparkly-blue-painted fingers and Mandy starts to panic. When Alyssa actually kisses her, Mandy is pretty sure her heart stops.

Alyssa’s mouth meets Mandy’s for a second until they start laughing and they giggle against each others’ lips for another second more, fingers still on Mandy’s chin. She tastes like cherry lip balm and strawberry vodka and her mouth is soft and her hair tickles Mandy’s cheek. Mandy is mesmerized, by her soft hair and the taste of strawberry.

And then she pulls back and bursts into laughter. So does everyone else, and Jen gives her a high-five and it’s someone else’s turn. The moment’s forgotten. Except that it’s not, not by Mandy.

Alyssa’s pretty, Mandy’s always thought so. She has a short black bob and bangs and she dyed Mandy’s hair pink for the first time a few weeks ago. They’re friends. They sit together in school and pass notes and Mandy hangs out at her house sometimes when her dad’s in a bad mood. That’s what friends do. Doesn’t mean anything.

Mandy’s kissed boys before. She likes boys. She likes that they compliment her and trip over themselves to walk her home from school, she likes how it feels to kiss someone with stubble on his chin and how she has to reach up to meet someone taller than she is. She’s strung a few boys along here and there, some she wasn’t really interested in. But she likes boys too. The red-haired boy who works in the Kash-and-Grab. Iggy’s friend Mark, who has warm green eyes and always asks her how she is. She likes boys.

But Mandy carries that kiss around with her for a long time, how soft Alyssa’s lips were and the way she feels afterwards, brittle and hot and too big and too small all at once. It doesn’t mean anything.

(It takes her a few years to admit that yes, it does, it does, it does)

* * *

 

When Mandy is 15, her father -- well. Well. He didn’t mean it. She tells herself she’ll never let it happen again. (She lies). She tells Iggy and Mickey that a boy who lives a few blocks over knocked her over and tore her skirt. They beat the crap out of him, black his eye. Mandy sees him the next day and tries not to feel guilty about it. 

Being noticed isn’t always a good thing, then.

She makes herself feel better by putting on a short skirt and a push-up bra and texting Michael McFadden, a football player on her high-school’s team. Mandy has geometry with him. Mandy’s noticed that he looks her way often, that he laughs at her jokes. They’re not really friends but he’s alright. Good looking.

“I’m kinda surprised to hear from you,” he says when she comes over. He lives in her neighborhood, and his parents aren’t home. “I never really thought—I mean—girl like you—“

“Didn’t call you up to talk,” Mandy says, and pulls off her shirt. She doesn’t ask him what he means by that.

 

 

 

That’s also the year she notices Mickey getting distant. Spending less time at home, keeping his door locked, lying about his whereabouts. Holding something close, a secret he’s not telling anyone. Telling her less, dodging questions, jumping to defensiveness. Mandy makes up stories in her head about what it could be. Something that’ll be a good story later. A funny one, a good interview.

He goes to juvie a few months before Mandy’s 16th birthday, and things are really bad. But when he gets out, Terry gets thrown in the slammer for transporting some coke, and things are better for a while.

 

* * *

 

When Mandy is 16, a boyfriend hits her for the first time. She breaks a baseball bat over his head. She tells herself it’ll never happen again. (She lies). 

After it happens, Mandy gets really drunk and goes to a party. Well, really, Mickey gets her really drunk and takes her to a party. She comes home with her eye black and puffy to find him on the couch. When he sees her, his eyes go dark.

“He do that to you?” he asks. They both know he’s not talking about the boyfriend. Mandy shakes her head.

“James. Shoulda shanked him,” she says.

“Knew he was a dickhead.”

Mandy sits down next to her brother on the couch and thinks that if it had been Terry (and it is, often) she probably would have lied.

“We’ll take care of him,” Mickey lights a cigarette. “Nobody fucking treats my sister like that.”

“Already did,” Mandy says, and Mickey laughs and bumps his shoulder into her and gets her a beer.

The one beer turns into several which turns into shots of crappy vodka which turns into Mandy begging Mickey to walk with her to a party someone from school is throwing a few blocks away. He complains, a lot, but agrees. They share a beer on the way to the party, and when they arrive he crumples the can and tosses it into the street. It’s a loud house party that’ll probably get broken up by the cops eventually but Mandy tugs Mickey into the house.

An hour later and two more drinks later, Mandy finds herself in a dark hallway kissing a girl whose name she never learns. The girl is wearing cutoff shorts and jangly bracelets on her wrists that keep tanging in Mandy’s hair and Mandy is simultaneously both too drunk and not drunk enough. She’s wearing glasses, and she pushed them up on her forehead when they kiss and Mandy presses her against the wall and feels dizzy.

Mandy kisses boys all the time. Mandy likes kissing boys. Mandy likes sleeping with boys too; she likes feeling close to people, likes the way she feels when boys tell her she’s pretty (so she can almost believe it) and likes when the dote on her. She’s messed around with a few who were really good at getting her off, and some who were terrible at it, and she really does like kissing them. She’s kissed more anonymous boys at parties than she cares to count.

But this is different somehow, and when the girl pulls back for a breath and smiles and says “Fuck you’re a great kisser” in a sweet and sleepy way, Mandy feels something shift around inside her. An upheaval. The girl’s hands are warm on either side of Mandy’s face.

When the party breaks up, Mandy can’t find her brother anywhere. So she walks home alone, drunkenly following the curb and the streetlights, clinging to the edge of the road and the warmth of the girl’s hands on either side of her face. She can’t shake it, this time.

 _Well,_ Mandy thinks. _Maybe--_

 

 

 

Sometimes Mandy wonders if her mom would be able to give her advice about it, the kissing girls thing. Everything else, too. Boys and brothers and and eyeliner and how to pass history. But the kissing girls thing most. It’s the kind of thing moms would have good advice about, and it’s not like she has anyone else to ask. Her aunt? Her fucking brothers? The idea makes her laugh out loud to herself. 

She doesn’t always get along with her brothers. Iggy and Colin are older, mostly wrapped up in their own activities that mostly consist of drinking, breaking car windows and calling each other ‘dickhead’ and ‘asshole’ in an endless cycle, some kind of older brother call and response. She likes hanging around them because they let her bum beers and she picks up good curse words. They tolerate her for a while, sometimes invite her along, but they usually shake her off pretty fast in favor of running errands for their dad or vanishing with their gang of friends. They’d do pretty much anything for her but they don’t always want her around.

Mickey is a little different. Mickey is between the older boys and herself in age, little and defensive and funny as hell. She’s always been closer to him than to her other brothers just by sheer fact of proximity but also because Mandy just straight-up likes him more. There’s something in Mickey that has something to prove; to their family, to himself. She doesn’t really know. He runs into everything fists first, and he almost always wins. Mandy likes that. Mickey kicks ass. He doesn’t let other people push him around.

Somewhere in their teenage years a pecking order was established in their family and despite being the youngest, Mickey’s near the top. It’s their dad, of course. Terry always first. But Mickey bosses Colin and Iggy around. Mickey comes up with plans and they help, Mickey decides to do something and they follow. Mandy’s not positive where she fits into it, being the baby sister, except for the fact that she can easily kick any one of their asses if she needs to.

She wishes she could tell Mickey. But there’s something in her brother that wishes so badly for Terry’s approval, and that makes Mandy feel scared. She has no idea what he’d do.

Mandy knows she looks like her mom; she and Mickey both, but mostly her. Her brothers see it, the older ones that remember Mom better. Neither Iggy or Colin will talk about her. Mickey just scowls. “Stupid,” he says, and shoves a pocket knife into the battered coffee table. “Shut the fuck up about it.”

Mandy’s memories of her mother are fuzzy. A pretty, dark-haired woman in cutoffs, handing her an ice cream that’s already beginning to melt in the hot summer sun. But moms give advice; that’s what they’re supposed to do. What they’re for. Mandy’s got friends whose mothers do. It’s not until Mandy is much older that she realizes how young her mother really was, that she probably wouldn’t have known what to say.

 

* * *

 

 

Mandy knows that boys want to fuck her. She learns this when she’s very young.

She also knows that the boys who want to fuck her don’t really want to date her, or when they do they only do because they want to keep fucking her. This takes her longer to figure out.

She also knows that people laugh at her behind her back, but that’s something she’s always known. That’s okay. Mandy knows she’s better than they are and, more importantly, she knows she can take them in a fight. 

 

* * *

 

When Mandy is 17, her brother comes out. 

That story goes a lot of different ways. When she’s 17 she almost kills her dad. When she’s 17 she runs away from home. When she’s 17 she comes home expecting the same amount of low-level chaos that’s always filled the Milkovich household but not this, not what she sees. Her brother, pantsless, covered in blood. Her dad. And a crowbar.

She doesn’t even think before she picks up the gun, she just picks it up. The gun is white-hot in her hand and she doesn’t recognize her own voice.

“Get the fuck away from him,” she says, and Terry drops the crowbar. It drops to the left of her brother’s head on the carpet. Her father stands up. “Back the fuck up,” Mandy says. “I’ll do it. Back the fuck up.”

Terry looks at her and his face is ugly and old and tired and mean, and Mandy’s finger curls around the trigger. It’d be easy, she thinks. Nobody would ever know it was her, even. It’d be easy. He’d never hurt anyone again -- not with a bullet in the head.

Mickey makes a noise on the carpet and it’s wet, like there’s something in his lungs, and Mandy knows they just have to run.

 

 

 

They run for a long time after that, out of the store around the corner with a stolen pair of shoes, and out of a hospital because of course they don’t have fucking health insurance to cover Mickey’s broken wrist and cracked ribs. 

They don’t have anything. Even at home they had stuff, a roof over their heads and enough money to throw around. Somewhere to come back to. Something that felt like family, even when it was shitty or hit hard. They run and they have nothing. Mandy has ten bucks in her wallet and the clothes she’s wearing, and Mickey. Mickey has three broken ribs, and her.

“We shouldn’t have run,” Mandy says at one point. She says it to Mickey’s back as he sits on the hospital bed, his shoulder curled in on itself, cutting her off, shutting her out. He doesn’t say anything but she can see every muscle in his back tense up.

“It wasn’t that bad,” she says. “I’m so fucking stupid, what the fuck are we gonna do, huh? If I thought I was all fucked before—“ she laughs and Mickey says nothing. “What was it even about?” she asks. “Will you fucking tell me? What the fuck I did that for? No?”

Mickey still doesn’t respond. He glances over his shoulder at her and something in his eyes looks shattered. Mandy should feel sorry for him but doesn’t. That probably means she’s a bad person, but right now she doesn’t care.

“Fuck you,” she snaps, and when Mickey still doesn’t respond she knows something is really wrong. Mickey never leaves a line open. Mickey likes to have the last word. She stares at his shoulders.

“I shoulda shot him,” she says a few minutes later.

“That’s both the dumbest and smartest thing you’ve said today,” Mickey says. He stands up and winces and turns around. “Can we get the fuck out of here before we get arrested or do you feel like doing a stint in the pen? They’re gonna figure out the social security number you gave ‘em is fake real soon.”

Mandy sighs, and follows her brother into the hall and, a few minutes later, out a window.

 

 

 

He doesn’t tell her anything more for days, and Mandy becomes convinced that he never will. They crash with their aunt, make her swear not to tell Terry where they are, and hunker down. It’s an old habit, one they’re good at. 

Mandy really thinks that it’ll never be addressed, that the fact that she pulled a damn gun on their dad will be one more thing shoved away and never touched or acknowledged. That’s an old habit too. She’s almost a little afraid to ask. She has no idea what the answer will be.

She thinks this up until the minute that her brother starts to tell her the truth. She’s coming home from running an errand for their aunt and finds Mickey sitting on the couch by himself with the lights off. He smells like stale booze and sweat. He’s been drinking, hasn’t been sleeping. Neither of them have, really. Mandy’s about to dump the groceries on the counter and go shower when Mickey talks suddenly, startling her.

“He had a good reason,” he says. “For beating the shit out of me.”

“Shut up,” Mandy says, but Mickey cuts her off. He’s hunched forward with his elbows on his knees and he looks small and tired and pale.

“Nah,” he says. “He did. He. He, fuck. He caught me.”

Mandy does dump the groceries, and then leaves them to sit down on the edge of the battered coffee-table across from her brother. Mickey doesn’t look her in the eye.

“Doing what?"

“Uh,” Mickey’s hands are restless, his fingers twitch and drum on his knees and then yank a cigarette out of his pocket and light it. “Fucking someone.”

This was, Mandy thinks, pretty obvious, because Mickey hadn’t had any pants on. She frowns. “Who the fuck were you fucking to make him do that?” Something dawns on her. “You ass,” she says. “Was it one of his girlfriends? Jesus Christ Mickey could you think with your brain and not your dick for—“

“It was a guy,” Mickey blurts, and Mandy freezes mid-sentence and mid-breath. Mickey rubs the corners of his mouth and then his brow, his face drawn in. His voice is rough and strangled, apprehensive but also defensive but also just plain batshit scared. “I was fucking a guy. I like to. Fuck dudes. Have for a while.”

Mandy looks at her brother and feels somehow like she’s seeing him for the first time. It’s not like looking at a stranger, because he’s her brother, her big brother, and honestly it explains a whole lot about a lot of things that Mandy had written off as just weird Mickey stuff a long time ago. It isn’t like she doesn’t know him, or something’s changed, or something’s wrong. It’s like something he’s been hiding in has been torn down and she’s really seeing _him_ , like she really knows him. All the way.

“Mickey,” she says, as firmly and reassuringly as she can considering. She wants to reach out, put her hand on her brother’s knee or his shoulder or something, but she knows that’s not a good idea. He’s so drawn into himself. She wonders how long he’s felt like this. How long he’s been hiding.

‘I’m—“ he starts and stops and coughs and doesn’t seem to be able to say anything else.

“It’s okay,” Mandy says quietly. Mickey glances up at her with a momentary flash of indignation on his face, a quirk of one eyebrow that says _yeah says you._ “It’ll be okay,” Mandy says, and that feels like less of a lie.

She stands up and crosses to the kitchen, gets her brother a beer, cracks the lid and hands it to him then sits back down again. “Shoulda shot him,” she says again, for the second time. “I wanted to.”

“Fuck,” Mickey says and exhales cigarette smoke. They sit in silence for a long time, the two of them. Mandy wants to say something else, some kind of definitive gesture of support but nothing she can think of seems to be something Mickey will want to hear. She doesn’t tell him that she really did want to shoot Terry, for one blind red rage second, that doing so would have felt like retribution.

(She’ll tell Mickey, in a few weeks, about why. About who really tore her skirt and how it happened more than once and he’ll go white like bone and punch a wall so hard he’ll tear his knuckles open. After that, as he holds a wet rag to his hand, he’ll make her promise not to drop out of high school. He’ll promise her to start the fucking band. And then she’ll steal a guitar. But not yet.)

 

 

 

There’s a tiny part of her that wants to tell him about the kissing girls thing. She still thinks about it. She gets off thinking about it, sometimes. But it’s different. She knows it’s different. She likes boys. For Mickey it’s an ultimatum, it’s life-or-death. It’s all there is. No other option, no way to pretend. He doesn’t say this to her but she can tell, from the set of his jaw and the way his face looks shattered and small. 

That’s not how it is for her. She can go on pretending. She’s in the middle, somewhere. Maybe he’d understand, but she can’t.

* * *

 

When Mandy is 18, she graduates high school. She’s the first member of her family to manage it in fuck-knows-when. Only one of them is in the audience when she walks across the stage and accepts her diploma but Mandy hears Mickey shout “FUCK YEAH” across the room in the lull in applause, and she thinks that’s all she needs. 

“Mandy and the Misdemeanors,” she says later. They’re drunk, sitting on the tiny porch of the tiny shitty apartment they’re renting. Mandy’s diploma is stuck to the fridge with a magnet shaped like a slice of pizza.

Mickey, cigarette between his teeth, glances over at her and his eyebrows vanish up into his hair.

“The band,” Mandy says. “That’s its name. Mandy and the Misdemeanors.”

“Why the fuck am I the misdemeanor?”

“Mickey and the No Criminal Record is too long.”

“Fuck off,” Mickey knocks back the rest of his beer and crumples his can on his knee. For a minute, Mandy thinks that’s that and he isn’t going to say anything else, but he surprises her. “You’re actually serious about this, aren’t you,” he says. “Like, for real.”

“Maybe I am,” she replies. “Didn’t steal that fucking guitar for nothing you know.”

“Yeah, that was still fucking stupid.”

“But I mean,” Mandy shrugs. “We outta try. What’s the worst thing that could happen? We suck? We suck anyway.”

“Well,” Mickey says. “What the hell. Not like we have anything else going for us, right?”

“Dunno,” Mandy shrugs. “At least I’m good looking.”

“Fuck off,” Mickey says, but he’s smiling.

 

 

 

That’s how things are, for a while. Mandy gets a dumb job waiting tables and Mickey works two and they practice. Mickey shows her, with an expression on his face that’s stuck between embarrassed and defensive, some of the songs he’s written down. They’re good actually. Really good. Mandy puts them to music. She’s okay at that. 

They’re actually pretty good, which is ridiculous. It takes a while and they usually don’t make money when they book gigs and they snipe at each other a lot when they’re practicing, but that’s okay. Those things aren’t what matters.

Mandy doesn’t sleep well. Mickey puts three deadbolts on their front door and sometimes when she’s dozing off she knows he stands outside her room holding a gun, just in case. They move into a bigger apartment and don’t tell their aunt where they’re moving; it’s a recommendation from a friend of a friend who Mandy knew in high school, a place with a basement so they can practice without their neighbors banging on the walls. Nobody ever comes looking for them, and they don’t go home.

They both have bad dreams. They both fuck boys. These are just facts about them, in line with the fact that Mickey eats stupid sugary kid’s cereal and Mandy looks like their mom. They don’t talk about it, but that’s okay too.

 

 

Time passes, as time does. Mickey writes a lot of songs. Mandy fucks a lot of boys, and most of them she never calls back, and she tries not to think about the fact that she can't forget how it felt to kiss Alyssa and what that could mean, what it might imply. And that's how things are, for a while.

* * *

 

 

Mandy is 20 when she meets Svetlana. She meets Svetlana when Svetlana asks them to get into a fight for her.

They’re in a pretty seedy very packed bar one evening, drinking dollar beers and squabbling in a way that doesn’t even take up any of Mandy’s brainpower when out of nowhere someone pushes through the crowd and points a pink-painted fingernail at Mickey’s chest. It’s a woman, a very pretty woman in a blue dress and she scowls and jabs Mickey in the middle of his chest with her finger.

“What the fuck—“ Mickey starts to say and she talks right over him.

“You,” she says. “You tough guy yes?” She has a strong accent, Eastern European maybe. Russian?

“Uh—“ Mickey starts.

“I need you to go punch man in blue hat,” the woman points over her shoulder at a very tall man in an ugly blue hat with a brim who is pushing through the crowd towards them.

“Uh," Mickey says. "Do I look like I'm for hire to you?" 

“If you punch man in blue hat I give you two hundred dollars and buy drinks,” the woman says. “If you do not, I kick you in balls.”

Mickey scowls and shrugs at Mandy and sets down his drink. “What the hell,” he says, and he punches the guy in the blue hat.

Unfortunately for Mickey, the man in the blue hat punches back. Mickey pushes through the crowd up to him and gets him once solidly in the face, and he gets Mickey back so hard that Mickey staggers backwards, knocking several people over in the process. People start shouting and swinging punches of their own but blue hat comes after Mickey, shouting a bunch of drunk and angry nonsense. He’s wearing an expensive looking suit and a gold chain around his neck.

Mandy tries to look the other direction but blue hat gets Mickey again on the jaw so she decides it’s gone on long enough and digs her baton out of her purse. She nails the guy once on the back of the neck, then right in the ribs, then on the back of the head as he goes down into the crowd, then she grabs Mickey by the shirt collar and hauls him out of the way.

The woman in the blue dress is gone from their table by the time they push out of the shouting fighting crowd. Mickey, blood smeared on one side of his chin, starts swearing and keeps swearing as he follows Mandy out of the bar as fast as they both can go. They can hear one of the bartenders calling the cops when they flee.

To Mandy’s surprise, the woman in blue is waiting for them outside of the bar, leaning against the next doorframe over with a cigarette in her mouth.

“You better have a fucking good reason for the fact that I just threw down on some dick in public,” Mandy shouts, or starts to, but the woman shakes her head.

“We walk now,” she says, and turns down the sidewalk at a brisk pace considering how tall her heels are. She stops, finally, when they are four or five blocks away from the bar.

“That your boyfriend or something?” Mickey grimaces. The woman shakes her head sharply.

“No,” she says. “Old client. Did not take no for answer.” Something in Mandy’s chest feels tight, like sympathy.

“You said you were buying drinks,” she says. The woman’s eyes twinkle. It’s almost eleven at night, a warm one, and her eyes are bright under the streetlights.

“You did come to my rescue,” she says. “Like prince and princess charming, yes?” Mandy snorts, but feels oddly flattered. “Come on, I buy drinks,” the woman says.

“You got a name?” Mickey asks. 

The woman grins. “Svetlana,” she says. When she shakes Mandy’s hand, her fingers and warm and strong in Mandy’s.

 

 

 

She’s a Russian immigrant, and she’s lived in the states since she was 17. She cuts hair. She drinks them both under the table that night and makes Mickey laugh in a way Mandy hasn’t heard him laugh in a long time. And she’s beautiful.The minute they meet Mandy knows she's trouble, but not in the way most people think Mandy is trouble. She makes Mandy feel clumsy and too hot around the edges and even though Mandy barely knows her she thinks she could probably follow her anywhere. 

 

 

 

Mickey starts hanging out with Svetlana, which is weird. Svetlana is sugar and ice, while Mickey is like barbed wire, but somehow they get along. Mandy is bewildered by it. Svetlana starts coming to their gigs, hanging around their flat on Mickey’s days off, inviting them to her parties that are mostly attended by a collection of very pretty very Russian women who listen to trashy electronic music and giggle a lot. Mandy likes her, but she’s also intimidated by her in a way that’s pretty unexplainable because Mandy makes a point not to be intimidated by anyone.

Which is why it’s really weird when, one evening when Mickey’s in a sour mood and Mandy wants to be out, she turns up at a bar not far from their apartment to find Svetlana sitting by herself at the counter. She gestures with her head when she makes eye contact and Mandy wanders over in spite of herself.

“I buy drinks,” Svetlana says, and Mandy doesn’t argue because really it’s a bit like a dream come true, a beautiful Russian woman buying you drinks.

Svetlana orders two vodka tonics, and pushes Mandy’s to her across the bar. Mandy sips it but Svetlana knocks it back and orders another.

“Bad day?” Mandy asks. Svetlana makes a derisive noise, gulps down half her drink and wipes at her mouth. It smudges her lipstick and Mandy finds herself brushing her fingers along her own lips at the corner.

“Bad habit to drink alone,” Svetlana says after a minute. “Better to find pretty company.”

“A rule to live by,” Mandy laughs, ignoring how hot her face is.

“Why here alone?” Svetlana asks, and Mandy shrugs.

“Mickey’s in a mood. Got a stick up his ass or something. He gets like that. Usually just best to give him some fucking space so he can punch it out or whatever.”

“You two have been through much together.”

Mandy blinks. “Uh, yeah,” she says. “I guess. Did he tell you—“

Svetlana shakes her head. “I get good reads on people,” she says. “I can tell.”

“I guess that comes in handy, cutting hair,” Mandy says, and Svetlana shakes her head again.

“From old job.”

“You were a therapist?”

“Prostitute. Almost same thing.” Svetlana’s eyes twinkle and Mandy finds herself laughing into the last of her vodka tonic.

“Why are you drinking alone?” Mandy asks. Svetlana rolls her eyes.

“Got dumped,” she says. “Fucking—“ and she dissolves into what has to be a very rude description of someone in Russian. Mandy has no idea what she’s saying, but Svetlana raises her eyebrows and tilts her head down and twists her mouth. She looks like she’s prepared to lit the object of her anger very hard in the head. With her head.

“That bad?” Mandy says sympathetically. She’s had her share of bad boyfriends, or bad boys she fucked around with. “Mickey and I could go rough him up. Mick’s good at that, take it from me.”

“Her,” Svetlana says. “And no. She would kill him with wrench.”

"You're--" Mandy pauses, because she has no idea how to say this or even why she needs to. "You have a girlfriend?"

"Not anymore," Svetlana scoffs in a way that clearly implies a  _good riddance to bad rubbish._ "Here's tip for you. Just because girl looks good in short skirt does not mean girl is good to date." 

Oh, Mandy thinks. “I’m sorry,” she says out loud. “That you dated a girl who kills people with a wrench, I mean.” Is Svetlana in the mafia? Is Svetlana gay? These are things Mandy needs to know and she needs to know them so badly her head hurts.

“I need tequila for this one,” Svetlana says evenly, not even noticing the way Mandy’s heart has turned over inside her chest, that she feels simultaneously too light and too heavy. “Margarita?” Mandy nods, distracted. 

“Glad you keep me company,” Svetlana says when the drinks come. She smiles and licks salt off the rim of the glass with her tongue, and Mandy thinks _Oh._

 

 

 

There’s something ironic about it, Mandy thinks when she thinks about it. The two of them, she and Mickey. Queer as a two-dollar bill, or whatever it is they say. Whoever they are.

The next time they play a show Svetlana is in the audience, and she meets Mandy’s eye across the room and raises her glass.

The next time Mandy gets off she doesn’t come until she thinks about Svetlana licking salt from the rim of her glass.

 

* * *

 

Mandy meets Ian when Karen Jackson dumps a beer down her shirt.

The fact that Mandy is hanging out with Karen Jackson at all is weird enough; they went to the same high school, and Mandy and Mickey happen to play a gig at a bar that Karen frequents. Five years ago they would have never even looked each other in the eye; Karen is blonde, Karen is bubbly, Karen wears a lot of pink and went to college and is generally not the kind of girl Mandy ever thought she’d get along with. But now, Mandy finds she’s actually a lot of fun. She knows a lot of people who throw fun parties, which is a nice change. Mickey doesn’t exactly like to go out.

Mandy and Karen are at a kegger being thrown by some guys in some frat that Karen knows somehow. It’s early summer and they’re both drunk and having a good time, dancing and flirting with the kinds of boys who definitely have money to blow if properly incentivized. Mandy is getting herself another beer when Karen suddenly stands up straight and shouts “Holy shit is that—IAN!”

“Who?”

Karen is pointing across the room at someone but it’s so crowded that Mandy has no idea who she’s gesturing at.

“No fucking way he’s on this side of town,” Karen says. “Ian!” Whoever she’s shouting at doesn’t seem to hear her so Karen grabs Mandy around the waist and hauls her through the crowd, stopping in front of a very tall very red-haired young man in a leather jacket. He looks like a ginger prince charming.

“Ian Gallagher!” Karen shouts, waving her arms.

Ian Gallagher blinks in confusion and then recognition spreads across his face like sunshine. “Karen Jackson? No shit! What the fuck are you doing here?”

“My friends are throwing this party! What the fuck are you doing here? Weren’t you in uh—uh—“ she flounders. “Middle East somewhere?”

“Was,” Ian Gallagher says. “Now I’m going to school here. It’s good to see you, you look great!”

“So do you!” Karen pauses and seems to remember that Mandy is there. “Mandy! Ian! Mandy, this is Ian—I used to date Ian’s older brother, ages and ages ago. Lip Gallagher—did you know him? Kind of a dick.”

“Don’t think so—“ a vague recollection of the last name swims through Mandy’s beer-logged brain. “Wait. Like Frank Gallagher’s kids?”

“Someday I’ll be introduced to someone and that won’t be their first thought,” Ian says. “Someday.”

“Ian, this is Mandy Milkovich—shit—“ Karen gestures to Mandy so enthusiastically that she flings her full cup of beer in Mandy’s direction. It collides with Mandy’s shoulder and dumps cheap Coors Light down Mandy’s front. Mandy shrieks and Karen shrieks and Ian Gallagher starts laughing.

“I’M GOING TO MURDER YOU,” Mandy yells at the same time Karen yells “HOLY SHIT I’M SO SORRY.” Mandy blinks beer out of her eyes and glances down herself to see the damage; she’s wearing a white shirt and a bright red lacy bra and the bra is completely visible through the shit.

“Look at this shit!” Mandy yells. “I look like I’m going to a beach party orgy, Karen!”

“Here,” Ian shrugs off his jacket and passes it to her, still laughing. Mandy shrugs it on. It drapes down towards her knees, the sleeves completely covering her hands. Ian Gallagher is a tall motherfucker.

“I’m still gonna kill you,” she says to Karen, who grins sheepishly.

Karen ends up vanishing an hour later and Mandy ends up dancing like an idiot with Ian Gallagher, hitting him in the stomach with the too-long sleeves of his jacket. An hour goes by and she’s sure Karen isn’t coming back and is probably hooking up with someone somewhere and Mandy turns to Ian.

“Wanna get out of here?” she asks.

“Can we get breakfast food?”

Mandy blinks. “Uh, sure,” she says.

They wind up at Denny’s, both of them smelling like a brewery explosion. Mandy finds herself talking. She doesn’t usually, to boys. She tells Ian about the band, about the band name and the gigs they have coming up and how she met Karen. He talks right back, just as much and just as fast, tells her the details of his brother’s tumultuous relationship with Karen six or seven years ago and about the class he’s supposed to be studying for. He works at a bar. He’s living on his own for the first time in a while. He’s studying physical therapy. He wants to help disabled army veterans.

Ian pays for their food, and he walks her to the bus and he waves as she leaves. He doesn’t come close to making a move on her. This isn’t usually how this happens. Mandy knows how these things happen and it’s not like this.

Ian asks for her number as they’re walking to the bus. “We should hang out!” he says. “It’s nice, you know, to hang around people from the neighborhood. And I’d love to see you play sometime!”

“You’re a dick,” Mandy says, laughing. “You just want to hang out with me because I’m a hood girl? Make you feel at home?”

“That’s not the only reason,” Ian grins.

Boys don’t usually want to hang out with Mandy, not unless it involves fingerbanging her on the couch while a bad movie plays in the background or something.

It’s not that bad, really. Takes her mind off of other things. At least Ian Gallagher is good looking.

Mandy gets home and showers to get the beer out of her hair and then realizes she still has Ian’s jacket. She usually doesn’t bother texting boys first (she usually doesn’t need to) but she texts Ian anyway.

“come over later & bring it!!!!” he responds, and that is that.

 

 

 

They hang out, a lot, and Ian doesn’t try to fuck her, which is weird. It’s weird because Mandy doesn’t hang out with boys who don’t try to fuck her. Boys don’t want to hang out with her unless they want to fuck her, but she and Ian hang out and he doesn’t try. They go to another party together, they go see a movie, they take his kid brother to the park the week after they meet and he doesn’t make a move. She wonders if she’s losing her touch, or doing something wrong, or just not pretty. 

Eventually, Mandy takes matters into her own hands. They’re at Ian’s apartment, which is small and crammed with pictures of his family and books and running shoes, on the couch watching something dumb on TV. They’re drinking. They’ve known each other for a week. Mandy yanks the beer out of Ian’s hands and slides across his lap so her knees are on either side of his thighs and kisses him. She does it just to get it over with, because she knows it’s going to happen anyway.

But Ian pulls back. Ian puts his big hands around her wrists, gently, and pushes her off him so she’s sitting sideways on the couch with her feet stuck awkwardly across his lap. He gives her a look like a kicked puppy, and something mean and angry moves around in Mandy’s chest.

“Fuck you, Gallagher,” she spits. Anger is the natural reaction, a defense, a shield. “What? I’m not good enough for you or what?”

Ian just looks tired. “Mandy,” he says. “I’m gay.” And all the air goes out of her.

“Oh.” She says. Mickey’s never said that out loud before, that word. Ian says it like he says it all the time. “Shit.”

“It’s okay,” he says.

“You’re not—“ Mandy flounders. “You’re not just saying that, are you?”

Ian snorts. “You grew up in the same neighborhood I did,” he says. “Why the hell would I make that up?”

“I don’t know,” Mandy isn’t sure what makes her keep talking, but she does. “Maybe you think I’m ugly or something.” She flinches. It’s a stupid, stupid thing to say. Ian stares at her.

“Mandy,” he says. “You’re beautiful.”

“Shut up.”

“You are!”

“Then why are you hanging out with me all the time if you don’t want to fuck me?” Mandy says. Ian puts his hand on her knee.

“Cause I like hanging out with you,” he says, and something in Mandy’s chest hurts in a way that she’s never felt before. “Cause you’re cool.” It hurts, but it’s not a bad hurt. It feels like something hurting before its starts to heal.

“Oh,” Mandy says. “Okay.”

They order a pizza and watch four episodes of Lost on Ian’s saggy couch, and that is much, much better than the alternative.

 

 

 

As it turns out, Ian and Mandy had a history class together in 10th grade. Ian worked at the Kash and Grab for years. Ian lived down the street. They somehow missed each other growing up despite all this, only to run into each other again years later. It’s too weird to be a coincidence, and feels like its closer to fate, because after that evening Mandy knows that Ian Gallagher is the best friend she’s ever had.

Ian Gallagher is a natural redhead, he has too many siblings to count, he has a dad who’s a drunk and a mom who isn’t around. Ian is gay. Ian can run a six minute mile, and when he’s feeling stubborn his chin sticks out, and he habitually cuts the crusts off his sandwiches. Ian has a really bad sense of humor, and he likes action movies and Justin Timberlake and the kind of pop music that Mandy would have hated herself for listening to five years ago. Ian was in the military. Ian is bipolar. Mandy learns these things about him and holds onto them, these details about his likes and dislikes and what his life was like before he met her. He tells her about Iraq and the buried mine that flipped the truck some friends were riding in and how that changed him. She tells him about the abortion she had when she was 15. He tells her about his mom, about how she left them and how it hurt. She tells him about her mom and how she died, how Mandy worries she’ll forget what she looked like. She tells Ian things she’s never told anyone else. They swap secrets and she holds onto his because they mean something, mean she’s trusted.

When Mandy is 21 she falls in love, just not at all with the kind of person she thought she’d ever fall in love with.

She loves Ian. She loves him like she’s never loved anyone and she doesn’t want to sleep with him, and he doesn’t want to sleep with her. There’s something in him that hurts, that broke and that’s having a hard time scabbing over. He’s trying to find a way to put it back together, a way that makes sense. He introduces her to all these words that Mandy doesn’t understand; “Type one bipolar disorder.” “Manic depressive.” “Rapid cycling.” All she knows is sometimes he’s sad and sometimes he’s way too bright and she loves him both times and also when he’s in the middle, loves him and loves him.

It almost isn’t a surprise when she finds out Ian and Mickey are sleeping together. There’s something that seems right about it, once the initial shock of her brother being interested in _anyone_ wears off. But that’s after Svetlana, so maybe that’s why.

* * *

 

Svetlana is a mystery.

She actually seems to enjoy hanging out with Mickey, even when Mickey’s in a god-awful bad mood, which truly is mysterious. They go out drinking together, and Svetlana often smiles in Mickey’s direction like she knows his secrets and is amused by them. Mickey doesn’t get along with anyone, not really (he gets along well enough with Mandy but that’s because they fight all the time about things that don’t matter in a way that doesn’t mean anything). Svetlana looks, with her bangs and distinct nose and heavy-lidded perfectly-made-up eyes, like a painting of Russian nobility pulled out of some story filled with snowy landscapes and animals that talk. She also talks about stabbing people with a little too much detail, in a way that someone who has actually stabbed someone before might talk. Mandy can’t figure her out.

She’s hard, in a way Mandy sometimes wants to be, in a way Mandy is scared to end up. But soft too, and funny. Mandy often thinks about her comment, her knowledge that she and Mickey are two people to which bad things have happened. Not that they’re bad people. Not that they come from a bad place. Bad things have happened to them.

Bad things have happened to Svetlana too. Mandy’s maybe not the best judge of character, but she knows that.

She’s a mystery, one Mandy wants to unravel. 

Which is why she agrees to go with Svetlana to the party, which is hosted by one of Svetlana’s friend’s friends. Mandy comes home one afternoon to find Svetlana in a sparkly sequined dress sitting on their kitchen table badgering Mickey, who is in his boxers. Mandy’s eyes involuntarily travel along Svetlana’s crossed legs before she yanks them away, and she crosses the room to drape her arm over her brother’s shoulder.

“Tell her to leave me alone,” he says, pointing.

Svetlana pouts, in a way that is both pretty and comical. “Dickhead won’t come with me to party,” she says. “He said he was my date. He lies. Look, I even dressed up.”

“Mickey’s a pretty shitty date,” Mandy says. Mickey looks at her sourly.

“Maybe I’ve got better things to do than go with you to a party filled with a bunch of assholes I don’t know,” he says. “And that mink is fake."

“Is nice though, yes?”

“Yeah? Like what? Jerking off does not count.” Mickey just scowls.

“Is hopeless,” Svetlana shakes her head.

“You wanna trade one Milkovich for another?” Mandy asks, surprising herself. “I’m not doing anything.”

“Alright,” Svetlana smiles. “You’re better looking date anyway.” 

Mandy dashes off to change into something nice and tries not to take that as a compliment.

Mandy decides on a little black dress and black tights, and she lines her eyes like she's putting on armor. When she comes out of her bedroom and starts to hunt around for her purse, Svetlana smiles.

"You look beautiful, Mandy," she says, then walks towards the door. Mandy stares at her back for a good ten seconds before she follows. 

 

 

 

The party is at the house in a nice neighborhood, and they take the bus and walk a few blocks together in dresses and heels.

“Are these drunk rich people or boring rich people?” Mandy asks when they stop in front of the house, which is very large. Svetlana laughs.

“New boyfriend of friend of mine,” she says. “Spoils her rotten, but makes her quit stripping. Men, stupid and jealous, yes?”

“You can say that again.”

“Lot of booze though,” Svetlana winks.

“That’s what I want to hear.” They head inside and commit themselves to consume as much very expensive champagne as they can get their hands on.

She ends up having a really good time. The house has a built-in bar and a pool and a balcony with a Jacuzzi on it, and around midnight people start pulling off their clothes and splashing around in it. Mandy and Svetlana co-opt the indoor pool table and beat seven other teams in a row. They’re a good team, even as they both get drunker and Mandy gets gigglier and has a hard time lining up her shots. Svetlana gives her a hand, standing behind her with one hand on Mandy’s hip to keep her steady and the other around Mandy’s hand around the pool cue.

 They wind up, eventually, on the balcony. People are laughing and shouting in the pool underneath them and the very early morning air is warm and Mandy is very drunk but is sipping a fancy crystal glass of champagne anyway. There are bubbles in her blood, that's what it feels like. She leans lazily against the balcony railing, closes her eyes until Svetlana's hand catches at hers. 

"Don't fall off," she says. "You break neck, your brother will never forgive me." 

"If you let me fall off this balcony I'll haunt your ass," Mandy says, but takes a step back. Svetlana's fingers leave her arm when she does. "You have some funny friends," she says. 

Svetlana laughs a little. "We girls look after each other," she says. "No one else does it. Friends for life, even when life is strange." 

"I never really had any friends like that," Mandy says. "Not when I was young. Boys wanted to get with me and girls were jealous because boys wanted to get with me." 

"American high school seems as bad as on television," Svetlana says. 

"How'd you wind up here?" Mandy asks this before she thinks about it. Svetlana's eyes are shadowed in the weak light from inside, and she shrugs.

"Not by choice," she says. "But is better, now. Now I have choice. Would like green card though." 

"Marry Mickey," Mandy says, and Svetlana laughs loud. When her laughter dies down, silence drops between them and Mandy's face is too warm. Svetlana is looking at her quietly, intently, in a way that maybe Mandy has noticed her look before. 

"Um," Mandy says, and then she makes a decision. She steps forward, one hand on the balcony railing and sets her champagne glass down unsteadily, and she kisses Svetlana on the mouth. 

Svetlana smiles against Mandy's mouth and she smiles more when she pulls back and the space between them is unbearable so Mandy presses forward again, her fingers on Svetlana's arm. Svetlana tastes like champagne and her hands are soft against Mandy's neck and her hair smells good too, like floral shampoo, and it tickles Mandy's neck. Mandy holds onto it like she's suffocating, presses herself to Svetlana as close as she can. They stay like that for a while until Mandy's elbow hits her empty glass which falls over with the sharp, bright sound of breaking glass. They jump apart, startled, but when Svetlana leans in to brush Mandy's hair out of her face and behind her ear, Mandy lets her. 

* * *

 

Mandy wakes up the next morning at home in her bed with yesterday’s clothes on and the worst hangover of her life. Someone is smacking the inside of her skull with a tire iron gleefully. She rolls over to glance at the clock which tells her it’s noon, and sighs, and tries to remember how she got home.

Someone had gotten her into a cab, and someone had dug around in her purse for her keys to unlock the front door, and someone had pulled off her shoes and draped a blanket over her shoulders. Svetlana.

It takes Mandy ten minutes to convince herself she should get up and another ten to actually haul herself upright and change out of her dress and into one of Mickey’s old t-shirts. She finally shuffles out of her bedroom into the kitchen for coffee. Mickey is sitting at the kitchen table texting.

“Someone had a late night,” he says. “You rolled in around two and wouldn’t stop fucking singing.”

“Sorry that some of us have a social life,” Mandy starts the coffee maker.

“Svet will be here in a sec to drop off your purse,” Mickey says. “Let her in, will you? I gotta take a shit.”

“Thanks for that,” Mandy groans. “Really, just the image I wanted this morning.”

“No problem,” Mickey stands up, patting her on the head as he goes.

Mandy sits and sips her coffee, checking her phone. She has two text messages from Ian, and after some investigation she sees she called him twice last night around one. This makes her feel guilty, because he has such a hard time sleeping half the time anyway. Is that what she’s forgetting, that she drunk dialed Ian in the middle of the night? There’s something that happened, something significant, but it’s sitting on the very tip of her tongue and she can’t pin it down. Mandy drinks more coffee, hoping the caffeine will jump-start her memory, but it doesn’t come back to her until Svetlana opens the front door.

When it does, it  comes back in a rush, and Mandy blushes from her hairline to her toes. She never blushes.

“I have purse,” Svetlana says, coming into the kitchen. She sets Mandy’s bag down on the couch and smiles. Mandy thinks about her smile in the dark on the patio, how it had curved up as she leaned in and how it had felt against Mandy’s mouth. She swallows. “Needed keys to lock door, but is returned.”

“You didn’t need to do that,” Mandy says. “I could’ve gotten it from you, that was way unnecessary. Don’t think I’m gonna need it today anyway, I’m not going anywhere.” She gestures down at her elegant oversized t-shirt and slippers.  

“No trouble,” Svetlana says firmly.

“Want a cup of coffee?” Mandy asks, feeling awkward.

“No,” Svetlana shakes her head. She’s dressed in what are probably work clothes; dark jeans, a pretty top, sparkly earrings. She isn’t wearing lipstick and it makes her face look soft and vulnerable somehow. “I will be late soon.”

“Okay,” Mandy says. “See you later, then.”

“Later,” Svetlana echoes, but she doesn’t move towards the door. She brushes her hair back and frowns at Mandy for a moment. “I have question,” Svetlana says finally, leaning her elbows on the kitchen counter.

“I’ve got an answer,” Mandy says. “As long as it doesn’t require too much brainpower because I think mine’s fried.”

“I want to know,” Svetlana glances at her hands and smoothes her hair out of her face and it strikes Mandy that she might be nervous, which is weird. “I wonder,” Svetlana continues. “If you want to go out sometime? On date? With me?”

Mandy’s brain slams on the brakes so hard she probably gives herself whiplash.

“Um,” Mandy says.

Oh shit, Mandy thinks.

“I have to think about it?” Mandy says, and she turns around very abruptly and flees, leaving Svetlana standing by herself in the kitchen 

“What the fuck is her deal?” Mickey says as he leaves the bathroom. Mandy hears him through her bedroom door, and she also hears Svetlana swear quietly in Russian.

 

 

 

Svetlana asked her out?

It’s like someone turns a light on in her head. Svetlana smiling at her across the kitchen countertop turns a light on in her head, a light that Mandy couldn’t shut off even if she wanted to. It’s so bright that it’s making her eyes water and it’s unavoidable and undeniable and she can no longer just ignore this. She can’t.

Svetlana asked her out. And the idea isn’t’—the idea’s almost- 

She sits on it for a week, and she feels like she’s crawling out of her skin, like she’s going nuts, like her head’s going to fly off. She can’t talk to her brother. So she talks to Ian.

 

 

 

“Something’s bothering you,” Ian says later. They’re stoned, on his couch. Ian had gotten the weed from his brother Lip, who is shorter and snarky and never seem to stop hitting on Mandy in a way that indicates she should take it as a compliment. Lip Gallagher is the kind of guy Mandy would have fucked when she was sixteen. To be honest, he’s the kind of guy Mandy would have fallen for, hard, when she was sixteen. She’s come a long way, she thinks, from guys like Lip Gallagher to Svetlana.

That thought sits in her brain as she stares at the television. She’s fallen for Svetlana?

“How did you know?” She asks, finally.

“Know what?” Ian asks. He’s in a jittery mood, can’t seem to sit still. He fiddles with the lighter, with the collar of his shirt.

“You know—“ Mandy feels awkward, doesn’t know how to start this conversation. Ian frowns at her and she realizes he thinks she means the diagnosis, the disorder, the big warning sign tacked on his head that he thinks reads UNSTABLE.

“Not that,” Mandy says quickly. “You know. That you were gay. When did you know?”

“Oh,” Ian shrugs, easily, the tension in his face vanishing immediately. “Always knew I guess. It was always there, more or less. For a while I thought something would change, that girls would get interesting or that I’d grow up or something, but I never did. I was thirteen, maybe? Twelve?”

“When did you tell your family?”

“Lip found out,” Ian says. “Found some porn.” He laughs. “I told Fiona, a couple of months later. She already knew." Ian’s so light, when he talks about it. It’s just a fact, a fact about himself that’s in line with the color of his hair and the collection of freckles on the backs of his hands. He has bigger things to go up against, Mandy supposes. The way his brain works. The medication he takes every morning. His mother.

“Was it hard?” Mandy’s voice feels small. Ian looks over at her.

“Sometimes,” he says. “Sometimes it still is. Why?”

Mandy stares at her hands. She needs to repaint her nails. The polish, red, is chipping on her thumbs.

“Svetlana asked me out,” she says, slowly. Her tongue feels sticky and hot and she can feel Ian’s eyes on her, his concentration trained in her direction.

“Wow,” he says, neutrally.

“A few days ago,” Mandy says. “We uh—“ she winces. “Made out at a party. But she asked me out after. That’s weird, right? Is it? I can’t tell anymore.”

“I don’t know,” Ian says. “Not really. What did you say?”

“Nothing, I guess,” Mandy looks at him. Ian’s eyes are warm and green and a little blurry. “It caught me off guard I guess, I didn’t know what to do.”

“What do you want to do?” Ian asks carefully.

“I don’t know what I want,” Mandy says. “I want—can I tell you something? A secret?”

“Of course you can.”

“I kissed a friend of mine when I was thirteen, a girl, and I’ve never been able to forget it,” Mandy says all in a rush. The words leave her so fast that she feels dizzy. “I still like boys. I always have liked boys, I don’t not like boys. But.”

“But,” Ian says quietly.

“A big but,” Mandy stares at her hands, then over at him. Ian is watching her and the expression on his face breaks her heart. “Is that completely nuts?” She asks.

Ian laughs. “No,” he says. “It’s not. Not at all.”

Something in Mandy’s chest lifts. She can’t explain it. There’s a bubble of lightness in her throat but she speaks around it. “So what do I do?” She asks.

“Say yes?”

“What does that make me?”

“That’s up to you,” Ian grins. “I should welcome you to the club, huh? Throw a party?”

“This is your fault somehow,” Mandy says weakly. 

“My bad influence,” Ian says, and he hugs her hard. He smells like weed and boy’s soap and Ian and Mandy puts her face in his chest and holds on and feels light, feels light, feels light.

 

 

 

Bisexual.

The word rattles around in her brain. She likes the way it fits in her mouth because it means something about her, about who she is. It’s something bigger than just herself and it makes her feel whole, feel simple, feel explained and strong. Mandy says it out loud to herself in Ian’s bathroom mirror after he falls asleep, watching her lips shape the words, and smiles, and her heart is like a parachute, unfolding and unfolding.

 

 

 

Mandy goes over to Svetlana’s apartment the next day because she’s tired of hiding it and she’s ready to try. Walking the steps up to her door feels like she’s walking a hundred thousand miles but she goes, slowly, gritting her teeth so hard it hurts. Svetlana answers the door when Mandy knocks on it. She’s in her pajamas, her hair untidy, her face bare. She looks tired. She looks beautiful. Mandy’s heart turns over, and she’s sure.

“Yes,” Mandy says.

Svetlana raises an eyebrow at her.

Mandy takes a deep breath. “To that date,” she says. “Yes. I’d like to.”

Svetlana leans on the doorframe and smiles, and her smile is like the sun breaking over water. “Good,” she says. “You wanna come in?”

* * *

 

When Mandy Milkovich is 21 years old, she comes out. She finds her best friend. She falls for a girl. She plays in a band. And things are alright. 

**Author's Note:**

> title comes from 'pole dancer' by andrea gibson


End file.
